She doesn’t look too surprised when I show up at her door.
“When I said I was leaving, I meant to go get some groceries. I’m going to cook dinner for you.”
She’s taken aback. “Seriously?”
“You letting me in?”
She steps aside. “What about time to think?”
“I’ll be quiet.”
The sight of the sofa halts me in my tracks. Damn, it felt good to hold her.
“I feel terrible about the carpet.” She pokes at the tea stain with her toe, guessing that I was dwelling on that. “I was more upset about that than Quinn’s shirt.”
“I’m sure it can be cleaned. English people have been drinking tea on expensive rugs for centuries.” I tell myself to move, and my feet somehow obey, but my mind is back in the living room kissing her. I try to tamp down the rising need by focusing on something unsexy. “What brought your sisters to town?”
“I guess they wanted to see what I was up to. They probably looked up the address and couldn’t believe that I lived here. I can barely believe it myself.”
I drop the bag of groceries on the center island. “The developer, a friend of mine, built this. He was going to sell the penthouse to another couple, but I managed to convince him at the last minute that I needed it.”
“It’s beautiful in a classic way. You don’t see much of this anymore. The flowers, the wallpaper, the crystal chandelier.”
“I can’t take any credit for that. I hired it out. Well, I didn’t even do the hiring. Rise contacted the decorator. All I said was I wanted it to be warm. You looked like a warm person.”
“I can’t believe that you were at the food tasting and that you thought I looked cute in a brown apron with my hair covered in a net and a plastic mouth shield.” She crinkles her forehead and gives me a look that suggests I might be short of a few marbles in my head.
“Quick Foods is a subsidiary of ours. The pasta dish was a new rollout, and I wanted to see how it was going over. You always have this problem with your sisters?” It would explain a lot about her fear of being unlovable.
“Yes. Actually, for as long as I can remember, they’ve kind of resented me. I’m not really sure why, but I tried to stay in the background, be quiet, and avoid them. I tried to make myself useful. If I saw like a tear in a piece of clothing, I would mend it, or I would clean up so they wouldn’t have to. For a while, that worked, but as I got older, I realized that none of these thingsmade them like me any better. I felt foolish trying to strive for their affection when they were never gonna give it to me.”
I reach out and stroke the back of her head in sympathy. “And so you moved away?”
She nods. “I had wanted to escape for a long time but obviously couldn’t do that before I graduated. And then once I graduated, it was a matter of money. It costs money to move and to rent an apartment, and I didn’t have any. I worked dozens of different jobs to save up to be able to lease a room.”
“Keep talking,” I encourage her. “I’m gonna make you a sandwich. That’s the extent of my culinary skills.” I pull all my ingredients out of the bag.
“I can cook that.” She holds out her hand.
I refuse. “I’m the man. I cook the steaks in this household.”
“You just said that you can only make a sandwich.”
“I can cook a steak. Every man knows how to do that. We’re born with that knowledge,” I boast jokingly.
“I’m scared,” she says, but she slides her ass onto a stool.
I find a cast-iron pan and start to heat it. “This is about the only thing I do know how to cook.” I pause in the process of salting the steak. “I take that back. I’ve made eggs and pancakes, too. Back in college, I’d order most of my food and generally had good success. Pasta, Chinese, Indian food all tasted good from the takeout joints, but the steaks would always arrive cold, so I taught myself how to cook a steak. Took me a few times to get it right,” I admit. I throw the meat on the hot skillet and let it get a good sear before dumping a stick of butter next to it.
“Do you have siblings?” she asks.
“No, I’m an only child,” I say as I spoon the melted butter over the charring meat. “I’m an only child of an only child. Our family is not doing much to help the declining birth rate. But they are keeping all the money inside a single silo, which is probably their goal. It keeps me busy, but now that you and I aremarried, I should start to delegate more things. I want to spend time with you and the family we’re gonna have.” I sneak a glance in her direction to gauge her response.
At her silence, I say, “Don’t want a family?”
She tilts her head to the side like she’s trying to envision this future I’m putting out there. “Of course. I’m struggling to adjust being in a fake marriage to you standing here making a steak sandwich and telling me you want to have kids with me. Like I want that, but I also feel like we skipped a lot of steps to get here.”
“The whole getting to know you bit? I agree.” I take the steak off the stove and let it rest under a tent of tinfoil. “But I think I should move in and fill in those steps.”
